The Congress of the United States
by an overwhelming majority in both houses has voted to pay in full what is
generally called the soldiers’ bonus, but what in reality is not a soldier's
bonus at all but the adjusted service wages, and very poor wages at that, which
the government allowed to the soldiers for the days that they served in the
World War.

We have generally referred to this
proposition as a "soldier's bonus," but here is what it was. When the boys came
back from the war in 1918 and 1919 and some as late as 1920, the government said that since all common labor had been paid from three
dollars to four dollars per day during the war without taking any chance of
being shot down, or of having their legs shot off, or their eyes shot out, that
they would pay the soldiers for the time that they worked, fought, and risked
their lives and money -- the same amount per day as the commonest kind of
laborer was paid for the same days worked during the war.

Now since they figured that the
soldier had already been paid around 30 dollars to 40 dollars per month while he
was in the war, they deducted the one dollar or dollar and a quarter per day and
gave the soldier a certificate for the balance. So that when the certificate was
paid, the soldier would receive as much money from the days that he stood in the
trenches as a commonest kind of laborer received for the same day that he
worked.

Now I think you or I or most any
other person would say that as a general rule, the man who worked and fought,
who slept in the trenches on the ground, in the rain, and in the mud, and who took
a chance of never coming back, was entitled to get a little bit more money for
that kind of service, than the man who lived in comfort in his home and took no
such chance of being maimed or killed.

But we did not regard it that way
when we gave the soldiers our certificates for service. We took the view that
they were not entitled to any more money than the sorriest kind of field hand or
workhand. And that is the certificate which they hold today and which is called
the soldiers' bonus.

A few years ago Congress provided
that the soldiers could borrow about half the money that was due on the
certificates. Now what we have done here this week is to provide to pay them the
balance, equal to the face value of the certificate issued by the government for
their services.

Some people talk as though the
soldiers had already been paid one bonus. That is not true at all. We have not
paid the soldiers the bonus -- once or twice or anything of the kind. What we did
was to issue a certificate to each man, giving him an allowance to be paid
later. And we have allowed them to borrow on this certificate up to one-half the
face value. But we have never paid the obligation at all. That is what we're
trying to do now.

Now we proposed and it passed to
law to pay the amount in full. The law which has been passed is known as the
Patman Bill. It is the same bill that previously passed the House of
Representatives. Last year I offered this bill as an amendment to another bill
in the United States Senate. It failed to pass. But in this session of Congress,
this same Patman Bill was voted in the House of Representatives by an
overwhelming majority. It came to the Senate and it was voted there by a very
large majority. It will become the law if the President will sign it. But even
though the President vetoes the bill, it would still become the law if
two-thirds of the United States senators will vote to override the President's
veto.

We are very near to the mark of
getting two-thirds of the senators to vote to override the veto in case the
President vetoes. It is a shame to have a few votes doing this wrong to the men
who fought our battles. That being the case, every person whether he has or has
not written to the President, should immediately write or wire to his United
States senators asking them to vote to override the veto on the soldiers’ bonus
bill in case the President vetoes the bill.

We hear that the President is
being urged to turn a deaf ear to the people's plea. Therefore, wire your
senators. We hope that will not be necessary. We hope the President won't veto
the bill. But for fear that he is going to do it, wire your United States
senators asking them to vote to override the veto.

Now the President tells us that he
was a veteran of the World War too, and that he understands it somewhat better
than we may think. Well it is true that Mr. Roosevelt was a veteran of the World
War, and an honorable veteran. He was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He stayed
up here on Pennsylvania Avenue in the daytime and in a very fine home during the
nighttime and he drew 10 thousand dollars a year for his services and he was
worth every cent of it. He was three thousand miles away from gunfire. Of course, he
had an income besides that which made him say that he did not need the 10
thousand dollars, but we paid him the 10 thousand dollars anyway, and nobody's
trying to take it away from him, and nobody says he wasn't worth the 10 thousand
dollars.

But the man that he does not seem
to have learned about is the man that did not stay on Pennsylvania Avenue and who
did not stay in any luxurious home, but the man who scoured the seas, who walked
and slept in the rain, who stood in the mud waist deep in the trenches, who went
over the top and faced the German guns, who breathed the poisonous gases, and
who not only went through 14 kinds of carnage worst than the fires of hell
itself, but who, when he came back, found his occupation destroyed and the job
which he had held gone.

But Mr. Roosevelt forgets that his
pay of 10 thousand dollars per year was 10 to 20 times the amount which we're
trying to get for the soldier who crossed the seas, who faced the enemy, and
probably came back home not half fit to live.

Someone said to me that some
soldiers they knew of ought not to be paid the bonus because they turned out to
be bums. Who was it that made them bums? The government sent them into the fires
of death, and I wonder that as many came out as well as they did. That's no
argument against paying the bonus.

And Mr. Roosevelt forgets further
that he got his 10 thousand dollars right on the barrel head for every day that
he worked or did not work and enjoyed Washington's society to the full limit in
the meantime. Whereas the soldier has now waited 17 years for his little day
labor wages and they're still fighting to keep him from having it after they've
made him wait 17 years.

I'm somewhat in the position of
Mr. Roosevelt on the war and I can put myself in his place. He didn't go and I
didn't go. The only difference is that I didn't get 10 thousand dollars a year
not to go. If he wants to place me in his status all he has got to do is to send
me a check for 5 thousand dollars for every year that the war lasted and we'll
be fifty-fifty on the war. Neither of us ever heard a cap snap and both with
five thousand dollars a year instead of him with the whole 10 thousand dollars by
himself will put us on the same basis.

It is true that he advocated going
into the war and I advocated not staying in the war. I think the circumstances
have proved that I was nearer right about that than he was.

Now the government of the United
States has issued its certificates for this money to everyone of these soldiers.
It is due in the year 1945, 10 years from now. What we have done in Congress and
in the United States Senate by the Patman Bill is to provide that the soldier can
put up this government certificate and get the government currency, our
government money, for an amount that is equal to the face value of the service
certificate, just like they allow bankers to draw face value in money on
obligations to the government which they hold.

In other words let us say that the
soldier holds a service certificate for 500 hundred dollars. Under our bill he
could put up that certificate and the government would pay him 500 hundred
dollars in change. That's the bill we're trying to get the President to sign or
if he don't sign to override his veto. There is nothing new about that.
Everybody else that holds a government bond or certificate can put it up and get
the government money on it.

Right today a bank can take any
bond or obligation that it has of the United States and put that bond up and
draw the money in cash on the bond and that doesn't half tell the story. Nearly
every member in Congress and nearly every member of the United States Senate has
voted at least three times within the last three years to allow the bankers to
take the bonds and obligations of the United States government and put them up
with the Treasury Department and secure as much money on the bonds as the face
value of the bonds represents. And then the bonds stood there in their name and
they could draw the interest until the maturity date and never pay out a cent of
their money in the meantime.

But they're not willing to do that
good buy to soldiers. All that the soldiers [are] asking to do under the Patman Bonus
Bill is to put up his adjusted service certificate, and if it is for 500 hundred
dollars, that he be given 500 hundred dollars of Treasury notes, which is the
same kind of paper money that you have in your pocket today, if you have any.
The soldier would not get any interest on his service certificate like the banks
do on the bonds and obligations that they put up to get money.

And the only thing today that we
have to decide is, will we say to the soldier with the 500 hundred dollar bond,
"No we won't let you have the 500 hundred dollars in money" and then turn around
to the bankers who have a million dollars worth of bonds and say, "We will not
only give you the million dollars in paper money for your million dollars of
bonds, but we will also pay you four percent interest on the bonds until the
date of their payment arrives."

Now what's the justification in
these senators who have voted to let the bankers put up the bonds and get 100
cents on the dollar and draw the interest just the same and yet turn around here
and not let the soldier put up his bond and draw the money without drawing the
interest? I want somebody to tell me how they make fish out of one and fowl out
of another.

Why on March the 9th, 1933 -- five
days after Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the office as President of the
United States -- we had another one of these bills up and we passed it, allowing
all banks to put up the bonds to the government and to get circulating money,
dollar for dollar, and allowing them to draw their interest just the same while
they had the money. Mr. Roosevelt signed that bill. Why didn't Mr. Roosevelt
veto that, if he was against that policy? Is he going to wait until the soldier
comes up to invoke some threat against that kind of a policy?

Now the argument has been made,
that to issue these soldiers this money is opening up a printing press, to print
money. This is a very flimsy pretense, particularly when Mr. Roosevelt had signed
two bills to print all the money that the bankers wanted issued for their bonds.
There's nine billions of dollars of gold in the Treasury. We only have five and
a half billion dollars worth of money outstanding. And if you issue the 2
billion dollars of solders' bonus, you'll still only have seven and a half
billions of dollars in money circulating, and you'll have nine billions of
dollars in gold in the United States Treasury to cover it. And that's one dollar
and 20 cents in gold for every dollar in money, whereas we're only supposed to
have 40 cents in gold for a dollar in money.

I want to ask the big bankers of
this country, whose banking houses and whose fortunes have been saved by these
soldiers, how they justify their opposition to this bonus being paid at this
time? If it had not been for the soldiers, these financial lords not only would
not have collected the millions of dollars they loaned to Europe and the money
that they made out of the war, but they might not have had a bank left, but for
those boys.

Oh yeah, they sounded the drum. They played the bands and said everything would be good when the boys came back
home. Now these very same men, who made millions out of the flesh and blood of
the men who fought their battles, are the very men who are fighting against
these men being paid the bonus after 17 years.

The soldier is entitled to be paid
this bonus. He has done his work. He has made his fight. He has taken his
chance. He has made the sacrifice. He's kept the faith. And he is the only man, the
only one who never was paid the daily wage for the days he worked during the
war.

No one has been more badly treated
than the average man who risked his life in the service of this country to be
paid the lowest wages of all on the chance of losing his life and then wait 17
years and still not have the low wages he was promised.

It is hard to understand how the
President could have framed himself into a mind to oppose us paying this
obligation which the government owes to these soldiers. The other night in his
speech over the radio, he said that because he could not find out the touch of
the American people, he sometimes went out fishing on the
Nourmahal yacht of
Vincent Astor, so as to get a better conception of the feeling of the American
people.

Well he's getting some letters
now from the American people, and I hope he'll pay as much attention to the
letters that he's getting from the American people as he is to those impressions
that he got while he was out on that five million dollar yacht. I hope that he would pay attention
to the letters and telegrams and judge that as being nearer the impression of
the American people, rather than the views of the high aristocracy with which he
has surrounded himself upon this late, pleasant cruise into the British waters.

My friends, I am asking you to
wire your United States senators now! Or if you haven't got the money to wire,
write them. If you can possibly do it, go wire them now. Ask them to put their
shoulders to the wheel, to help override the veto of the President, in case he
vetoes the bonus.

Do not take any chances. Ask them
to do the same justice by the soldiers they've done by the captains of finance.
Great good would be done to this country if we paid this two and a quarter
billions of dollars into the channels of our commerce. It would stimulate
business everywhere. It would do the people more good than it would do the
soldiers. In truth and in fact, we're simply asking that the soldier now be paid
after 17 years of waiting the commonest kind of wages which others were paid
during the time when he fought in the trenches.

Wire your senator! Wire your
senator! Wire your senator to override the veto, if a veto comes. Wire your
senators, ladies and gentlemen! Wire them now! Wire them to stand by the
soldier, do justice by the soldier, and override this veto.